Can you believe it was only on Monday that then prime minister Tony Abbott denounced "Canberra gossip"?

"I'm not going to play Canberra games," he said.

Fair enough too. We, however, have a professional duty to tread a different path, especially on the Defence and Communications portfolios.

Kevin Andrews had us in hysterics with his pitch that as a sort of powerful figure in the Right Faction, it would be in the Party's interest for Malcolm Turnbull to keep him in the gig. Points for trying.

Then came the push to install Christopher Pyne, apparently so he can preside over billions of dollars of inefficient defence spending in an attempt to save a few seats, including his own, in South Australia. Add it to the all these billions on water and this change of PM is getting pricey.

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We gather all this stuff about him being Communications minister is being put around by one of his rivals for the subs-tank-and-fighter jet job.

The trouble with the Communications portfolio is that Turnbull knows it backwards – so it looks a ripe source of tension.

That wouldn't be the case if, say, the current parliamentary secretary Paul Fletcher was elevated to the job. But it could be for Pyne and, even more so, Hockey.

Also, it's not ideal for a minister to have recently sued one of his stakeholders for defamation.

Communications is also a risky portfolio with the enormous NBN project with all its fiddly detail. Who to trust with it?

And who could stand up, when required, to Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes? Arthur Sinodinos could, although we still don't quite understand how he can return to the ministry before ICAC publishes its report.

As for Defence, don't discount Bronwyn Bishop trying to make it a four-way contest. After all, she apparently voted the right way. Extraordinary.